Genuine Spanish wares

“What? Grappa? Nah! But we have grippe, genuine imported Spanish wares, no ration card required!”
(Guckkasten, Germany, 1918)

Tubes, shower, props, etc.

(In the wake of the Spanish flu epidemic.)
Child (terrified): Mama, mama, a monster!
Mother: Take it easy, it is your father who has tried in vain to come back from a little shopping at the greengrocer!!!
(Patapon, Bari, 1921)

The new… offensive of the Spanish flu

…and the heroic resistance of the public health authorities.
“Go away! Don’t go in here!”
(Il Pasquino Coloniale, São Paulo, 1920)

Measures of the authorities regarding the threatened return of the “Spanish”

Halt! From here you shall not pass!
(Il Pasquino Coloniale, São Paulo, 1919)

Regarding warding off the threat of the Spanish flu
A preventive measure that imposes itself: Gagging journalists prevents any alarm in the population

There is no harm in not coming for good

Alas, the flu of my soul! If it weren’t for you being too ugly, I would even kiss you. (Interments, wills, funerals enriching the Church during the pandemic.)
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1918)

The past seems to remain

A future Asian invasion? We still haven’t had enough of the flu, hasn’t she become the mistress of our house?
(La Campana de Gracia, Barcelona, 1927)

On the decline

They say the flu is already going down.
“What would have to go down are the robberies and gunmen.”
(La Esquella de la torratxa, Barcelona, 1933)

Freedom

“Are you also going to the pharmacy, Mr. Anton?”
“On the contrary, I’m going to take advantage of the fact that my whole family is down with the flu.”
(La Esquella de la torratxa, Barcelona, 1933)

The flu

As if we had not yet received enough, that things have come to this pass. The Russians must have sent it to us, however…
(La Esquella de la torratxa, Barcelona, 1931)

The most miserable

“My wife has had the flu.”
“Well, mine has had two creatures, which is even worse!”
(La Esquella de la torratxa, Barcelona, 1929)

The New Year and flu

“It’s weird they let you in!”
“It’s because it was disguised as constipation!”
(La Esquella de la torratxa, Barcelona, 1927)

Benefits of the flu

Flu and rent are antagonistic. Who pays the rent while they have the flu? Who has the flu without paying the rent?
I’m not going to work, because I’ve got the flu. Better for employment!
It seems that the bookmakers and the drummers do not get sick. Public Assistance must be immunizing them!
The tailor has said to take your measurements if I don’t pay. It is preferable to take a purge!
This flu is very benign. The doctors are in good spirits. There is no need to get along with the heirs.
I buy clothes on the installment plan. I buy a piece of land on the installment plan. I buy furniture on the installment plan. The system is so good that I will get the flu on the installment plan.
(Caras y Caretas, Buenos Aires, 1927)

Mr. Adabei interviews Mrs. Flu

“Adabei” (roughly, “Also there”) was a byline for a series of columnists at Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung in Vienna. Sometimes cast as a pompous mascot for the newspaper, Adabei is here depicted in a mask interviewing a disreputable visitor, another recurrence of influenza. The poster reads: “Only for a short time longer!!! Personal appearance of the true Spanish feverish dancer, Señorita Katarrhina Flu, with her coughing and sneezing ensemble.” (1931)

Sarrasqueta’s health cures

(Caras y Caretas, Buenos Aires, 1918)

Sarasqueta feels an atrocious fear of acquiring some disease, and thinking that a protected man is worth two, he has adopted all the fashionable serums and injections that science has discovered, to immunize himself from any more or less contagious infection.

He starts by going to Public Assistance to get vaccinated and immunized from smallpox, both black and colored.

He takes another injection to defend himself from Asian cholera morbus, another against bubonic plague, and another against yellow fever.

Another against hydrophobia or anti-rabies, because he is always raging without knowing why.

Still others against diphtheria, flamenco, dengue, influenza, flu, and pulmonary tuberculosis.

Finally, another against the chilblains and their itching, which with these colds is what bothers him most.

With his entire body already tattooed with needles, and the different injections in contact with each other, he feels an anarchic revolutionary movement inside, and a Bolshevik chaos that is not the Russian one.

Finally, calm and feeling perfectly immunized and armored against all kinds of diseases, he defies death face to face.

But when he goes to turn on the light, he touches a broken switch and receives an electric shock that almost leaves him charred.
He had forgotten to apply a concentrated gum acacia injection that would insulate him from electricity!

Free rider

Ticket-taker on tram: “Where do you let this man go? After all, we’re packed like herrings in here. That way the flu does not spread.”
“And be quiet! This is exactly the remedy against it. If you don’t sweat here anymore, then you won’t anywhere…”
(Humoristické listy, Prague, 1927)